$57.9 million spending plan will be put to vote Tuesday

Nearly $10 million in federal and state grant awards are included with the proposed $57.9 million school budget that school trustees will vote on Tuesday.

A list compiled by the district shows county schools will benefit from $7.46 million in federal grants and $941,000 in state grants this school year. These grants include $2.6 million for Title 1 programs in high-poverty schools, $600,000 for a SC Reading First program in yearround schools, $489,338 for improving teacher quality, $198,562 for occupational education, and a $100,000 staff retraining grant.

Schools will receive state grants for arts education, agriculture, the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program and $177,000 from Cherokee County First Steps to address early childhood issues. Restricted state funds provide $1.2 million for such efforts as buying supplies for science kits and lotteryfunded curriculum initiatives for kindergarten through fifth grade.

"Our teachers and staff have worked really hard over the past year to write grants and bring in new money to improve education in the school district," superintendent Dr. Bill James said. "Most schools will receive a significant amount of state and federal money from grants, staff retraining and academic assistance money."

No new locally funded programs are included in this year's proposed school budget.

County residents won't get hit with a tax increase. The budget has a small raise for employees.

The school board will hold a public hearing on the budget Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the district office.

Trustees are expected to vote on the budget at the regular meeting following the public hearing. Only one reading is required for approval.

The new budget goes into effect July 1.

The proposed district spending plan gives all employees a minimum 2.3 percent pay increase funded almost equally by local and state money. Teachers will receive an even higher pay raise if they are due a step increase on the state's teacher salary schedule because of experience and/or a higher degree.

The budget would repay $1.2 million borrowed from the general fund to pull school district lunch programs out of the red. The budget includes more than $250,000 in paving projects approved by trustees earlier this year.

The district has applied for a state waiver so it does not have to raise local revenues for the purpose of meeting the state's local tax effort rate. The state requires local funding from school districts to increase at the same rate as state funding. James said this has not occurred locally for the past two years because of a decline in local property values.

James met with budget committee chairperson Ola Copeland and school board chairperson Sandra Greene on May 19 to present the proposed budget. Copies of the budget were mailed out to school trustees the following week.

James has said the district is evaluating potential revenue sources outside the school budget for the possible funding of a Gaffney High track and a "Virtual School" program that would allow students to take Internet courses for high school credit.